Hollywood police seek three pawn shop robbers

HOLLYWOOD — The hunt is on for a trio of robbers who held up a pawn shop with a hatchet and a semi-automatic handgun and got away with an undisclosed amount of jewelry, authorities said.

In the hopes that the public might recognize those involved, police have released surveillance video of the Monday afternoon robbery showing the three men enter the Value Pawn at 6001 Duval St. one by one.

The first man's role was to "distract the employees," said Lt. Osvaldo Perez, spokesman for the Hollywood Police Department.

He entered the store at 1:53 p.m. The video shows him, with long hair and dark clothing, walk from a four-door car to the store, where he wanders around and has an exchange with a clerk.

A second person, also wearing dark clothing, approaches the store from a different direction about five minutes later, the video shows.

A third man, wearing a gray shirt and camouflage hat and pants, arrives two minutes later with a hatchet concealed in a duffel bag, police said.

While one of the men speaks with a clerk at the jewelry counter, an accomplice jumps the glass counter with his duffel bag, prompting one of the other robbers to draw a semi- automatic handgun and aim it at the clerk, according to a police report and the video.

The suspect behind the counter stuffed jewelry into the duffel bag while his accomplice held the clerk at gunpoint. The video shows the clerk slowly turn and duck below the counter.

The robber jumps back over the counter with his duffel bag of goods and runs away with his armed accomplice, the video shows.

The initial suspect is seen leaving the store moments later and getting into the passenger's side of an awaiting car which drives away, the video shows.

Police aren't certain how the two armed men escaped, but assume that the getaway car circled around and picked them up, Perez said.